I take them all with me
by callmesandy
Summary: Season 3 AU, Pacey tells Dawson he loves Joey before Pacey and Joey get together. (Secondary Pacey/Jen.)


Notes: no profit garnered, not mine. Title and opening quote from Kina Viola's How We Got Away. Season 3 AU. Thanks to A for help! For the gwyo setting bingo spot seen below.

* * *

 _They say, don't climb back into that bed. Don't you swim with sharks. When I think about it, I tear a hole in the curtain and go through the window. I tear a hole in the sky, split the clouds. They separate like watercolors. This is how we get away: sunset dissolving into treeline, holding hands, I take them all with me. I take them all with me._

"Pacey."

There's just something in his heart that twists, breaks, and ruins him about the way Joey says his name right in that moment. He can't do this anymore. He knows it's not what he deserves or anything, that he's going to end up inevitably nowhere, in a metaphorical desert where he has no friends.

But the way she says his name.

He tells Dawson. "I just need you to know."

"You've had sex with Andie and Jen this year, planning on adding Joey now to your disgusting antics?" Sometimes Dawson's face is a pinched prune.

"Really? Are you kidding me with this? This is your response, to be cruel on purpose?"

"I don't know how you expect me to react, Pacey, I don't know why you're even telling me," Dawson says.

"Because you're my best friend, usually, she's your super best friend or whatever is going on with you, if something happens, I don't want you to be surprised or feel like I didn't tell you something," He also just wants to get it off his chest, damn.

"You're going to ask her out or something?"

"Well, no, she seems pretty happy with this AJ guy," Pacey says.

"You're going to wait to go after her when they break up," Dawson says, even more like a prune.

"Maybe I am," Pacey says.

"Should I not tell her your big secret?"

"Do what the fuck you want," Pacey says.

That one time with Andie which he knows very well he never should have told Dawson about, that was a mistake. They couldn't put anything back together and he could forgive all he wanted but he could not forget.

And Jen. Jen might have said his deconstruction before Witch Island was brilliant but it was nothing of the sort. They never hooked up because Dawson in his own way saw her first. Pacey knew better and therefore never tried a damn thing before there was Tamara, which was literally what a day? That was why they were never together. It just took a fake bit of chicanery for both of them to see it.

The first time was in the back of video store. She came by, the store was closing in ten minutes anyway. When he finished shutting things down and locking the door, he went to the tiny back room and Jen was wearing this black lace between her legs that was not enough fabric to be called underwear.

She said, "You have to take off the vest at least."

"And put a hat on," he said. Vest off, condom from wallet, pants unzipped, he pushed aside the lace to touch her, get her wet.

She pushed into his hand and said, "Fuck, you need to bend down so I can actually kiss you."

"My poor back," Pacey said, not even close to complaining. He kissed her and she made these breathy little sounds in his mouth that got him insanely harder. She made it all worse, rubbing herself then gripping his dick, like, why hadn't they done this before? But the really important part was she got the condom on so he thrust right into her and it was an incredibly fantastic mindblowing ride. The two of them worked great, and he held on to her thighs, held them apart as they fucked.

It turned out Jen was quite the loud one when having sex, while Pacey was, as usual, more of a grunt. She pulled on his shirt and bent her head into his chest while she panted, her breathing slowing down. "That was casually enjoyable."

"That was some great sex," Pacey said. "Grade A fucking, in the nicest way. Excellent plan we made. Let's keep this up."

They also did it in the janitor's closet and while getting themselves presentable for their next class Pacey said, "Next time new position."

Jen had a compact in her backpack she was using to check her hair. She said, "Also more foreplay. I presume you know how to go down on a girl -"

"I have received compliments, thank you very much," he said. "Maybe I'd like to get casually get my dick sucked."

"I am great at cocksucking," Jen said. "I'll show you."

Dawson walked in on them the third time they'd fucked in his room. Dawson swore and Pacey grabbed at the beach towel they'd put on the bed and Jen said, "OH MY GOD."

"You're in my room," Dawson kept saying.

"Casually having sex," Pacey said, somewhat hysterically.

Jen said, "Dawson, step out now."

"You're in my room," he said, again, almost yelling.

Jen said, "Do you want to see Pacey naked or do you want us to have a minute to get dressed?"

Dawson slammed the door. Pacey and Jen tried to apologize but Dawson really did not care about the whole we're just having casual sex thing and especially not in his room which everyone agreed was rude and wrong. "Absolutely wrong," Pacey said.

That was the end of their arrangement and he was pretty sure Dawson took a certain satisfaction in making sure Andie, Joey, and Jack knew about what they'd been doing. Joey called him repulsive and went off and met the college boy.

Andie said, "It's okay, I get it."

"You don't, it's not like anything I do is yours to judge anymore," he said. He was angry, he had a right to be angry. She cheated on him, that was why they broke up and it wasn't like he'd done something so unjustified.

She looked at him with tears in her eyes, which made him feel like the scum Dawson thought he was. She said, "I know. I just meant, I know why you'd want something uncomplicated and Jen's great, she's a good person and she likes you so she wouldn't hurt you, even if it wasn't a relationship. That's all."

"Sorry I snapped," he said. "Sorry." He pulled her to him by the back of her head, gently kissing her forehead. "Sorry."

So much of everything, though, was and is Joey.

Joey came by his house the day after his 16th birthday and tossed him a badly wrapped gift. "You remembered," Pacey said.

"I never forget the day you threw up on little miss snob Sherman. That was one of the greatest days of my life," Joey said.

"Which is why you think my birthday is the day after my actual birthday," Pacey said.

She shrugged. "I guess everybody else got you something so this is like the least possible I can do."

He opened it, it was a t-shirt that said "I got crabs at the Ice House."

"Bessie thought those were hilarious," Joey said. "Bodie disagreed, we never had more than a few made."

"So it's a special edition," Pacey said.

"It suits your high class sense of humor," she said. "Did you have a good birthday?"

"No," Pacey said. "Not at all. But this is nice."

Joey found him at some point during that night at Chris Wolfe's. She sat next to him and said, "I bet you're the king of cramming."

"The King would have better grades," Pacey said dully.

"You're right," she said, smiling. She bumped his shoulder with her own. "You're more the jack of cramming. Or just the 10."

"That's not actually how it works outside of card decks but I understand you wouldn't be aware of that," Pacey said, nearly smiling.

"Yes, for I know nothing about history of any sort," Joey said.

"I'm the shogun of cramming," Pacey said.

"You aren't, at all," Joey said, laughing.

For Christmas she bought him the book Shogun which he enjoyed a lot more than he expected.

He went to the Ice House after the fishing trip with his dad. "I had a miserable weekend," he said.

"Did you wear that shirt? Because then you deserved it," Joey said. He was wearing his limited edition I got crabs one.

"I didn't," Pacey said. "I changed after. My dad humiliated me after I did one thing right for once, but Dawson was nice to me so I've got that, at least."

"I was a bitch to Jen," Joey said. "I'm always a bitch to Jen."

"You really are," Pacey said. "What is that about? I like Jen, I can tolerate you, what's the big deal?"

"I'm a bitch," Joey said, frowning.

"Sure," Pacey said. "That's one explanation. You're not a bitch to Andie and thank you for that."

"I'm a very angry person according to Dawson," Joey said.

"Oh, yeah, I read that script. You're not as angry as Dawson made you. Maybe he doesn't get your anger, it's too uniquely estrogen for him," Pacey said.

"That's bullshit," Joey said.

"Rrowr," Pacey said. "Some guys like that."

"Clearly not you," Joey said. "Andie isn't angry."

Pacey shrugged. "You could probably do something more productive with your anger, you know."

Joey rolled her eyes at him but she brought him onion rings. "Your dad can be awful," she said.

Once summer came and Joey was working at the Marina, he stopped by constantly. He complained. She complained. He tried to deflect her asshole boss away from her but he was never very good at it. He could only see Andie that summer, in his head everything was her. But Joey in short shorts definitely inspired some lustful thoughts.

He masturbated in the shower generally, for easy clean up and actual privacy. Before Tamara, he thought about movie stars and musicians and one or two friends of Gretchen. Then there was Tamara and that was all he needed to get his dick hard. Even after Tamara, though at that point he did cycle back to certain actresses (Gillian Anderson forever) and back to Tamara. Then there was Andie and only Andie and she said a lot of things that spoiled Tamara for him about statutory rape and abuse. After her, it was basically Jen and Gillian. Jen for actual awesome memories, the sound of his dick in her soaking wet pussy, as gross as it might sound, it made him hard that he got her so wet that they made that sound together. He never thought of Joey, like somehow it was wrong because she had a boyfriend or he hadn't told her he loved her.

She was furious at him over Jen. Furious. "It's disgusting," she said. "Are you capable of thinking with anything other than your penis? Why is everyone so obsessed with sex?"

"When did you get so weird about sex?"

"I'm not weird," Joey shouted. She sat down next to him.

Pacey said, "No, seriously, last year the only thing that stopped you from having sex with Jack was that he couldn't get it up. You were ready to do it with Dawson, too. But now you act like any sex at all is disgusting."

She looked up at the sky. She'd been home from her college visit for only a few hours. "I had the best time with AJ this weekend. We kissed, you know, it was amazing."

"Is it," he looked over at her. "Are you afraid? You've been rejected, sort of, twice when you made yourself vulnerable and now it's all mixed up in your head to this weird puritanical streak that isn't even about morality but just some blanket no sex ever thing."

"That's wrong," Joey said.

"Is it? Sex is great," Pacey said. "It feels good. It's supposed to feel good. God bless the 20th century, we can not only do it and enjoy it but not catch diseases or get pregnant if we don't want to. It can be awesome and this kind of deep loving connection or it can be awesome and just spending time making each other feel good. But to you, it's all wrong? Is that your argument?"

"I don't have an argument," Joey said. She was sniffling. "I made a mistake with Jack and Dawson."

"Yeah, that kind of shit sucks. I've been rejected a lot and cheated on, trust me," Pacey said. "But I get back up, usually."

"And I develop a complex, a puritanical complex?"

"Of fear," Pacey said. "Your AJ sounds pretty good, don't let Jack and Dawson hold you back from doing something awesome."

"You're telling me to have sex with him? Thanks for the advice, Pace."

"I'm saying this thing you do where even the mention of sex or intimation of it makes you freak out and say things like why is everything about sex why can't it be about anything else, like sex is inherently bad, that's bad to keep doing, and maybe AJ might be the guy to convince you," Pacey said.

She really liked that AJ guy.

Pacey told Dawson and Dawson was pissed about something and told Joey. She acts weird around him until he forces her to admit it. "Come on, Joey," Pacey says. "You don't love me, just let me moon over you."

"I feel weird about it," she says.

"Dump AJ and go out with me," he says. "Or don't. I'm pretty good just spending time with you. No ulterior motive, I swear."

The first night he does the play, when he and Joey have found a weird, indifferent kind of peace, she does come to the after party and he spots her talking to Dawson. Dawson looks disgusted again, all prune-y, and Joey stomps off in tears. He's not proud, he chases after her.

"Joey, Joey, Joey," he says.

"You gave me that talk about my neuroses and I felt so ready and I had sex with AJ and it was, you know, you were right, it feels good. And I told Dawson and he made me feel like a whore," she says, shouting the last word at him.

"That's my fault," he says calmly.

"No," she says. "No."

"Sounds like Dawson's the one fucking up," Pacey said. "Look, Joey, he freaked out. It's understandable. You can't let your life rise and fall on his approval. Was the sex good?"

She looks up and down. "It was fine. It was, you know, I thought it would change everything, but it changed nothing. Except me and AJ took this step. I thought it was huge, it would be huge. In my head it would be huge," she says.

"Yeah, it's weird, isn't it? I thought once I had sex I would be something more than I was, I would be elevated to manliness and it was absolutely nothing like that," Pacey says.

She pats his arm and says, "Sorry I missed your show. I'll see it tomorrow." Then she's running actually running home. He just watches her until she's out of sight.

"Are you just waiting for her to break up with that boyfriend?" Andie's voice is simultaneously accusatory and sad.

"I'm not waiting," Pacey says. "My life goes on. What happens happens."

"You're very zen suddenly," Andie says, more humor in her eyes.

"I've given up expecting to have a handle on what comes next," Pacey says.

"Now we're doing scenes from Waiting for Godot," Andie says.

"Not waiting for anybody," Pacey says. "You did fantastic tonight."

"You, too," Andie says. He doesn't think about kissing her.

"It's just so disgusting," Dawson says, stamping around his bedroom. Joey's mural she painted was vandalized, Pacey beat some guy up, the same guy got suspended and now Joey and her cheerleading boyfriend from college are campaigning, Dawson's almost girlfriend Nikki is leaving town. But he stamps around his room because seeing AJ reminds Dawson that Joey is now on the whore side of his virgin/whore complex.

"It's not disgusting," Pacey says.

"We always talked about the importance, the meaning of moments like that and she throws it away on him," Dawson says.

"She should have waited for you?"

"No," Dawson says. "But maybe someone she hadn't dated for less than a month?"

"Why does it matter? It's not your vagina," Pacey says. "Did you tattoo your claim on her one night while she was sleeping up here?"

"Shut up, Pacey," Dawson says.

"You're better than this," Pacey says. "You're not this guy."

"Maybe I am," Dawson says. He sits down on his bed. "Fuck you."

"Are you softening on the Joey thing?"

"No," Dawson says, pouting. "I hate this."

"Life? I keep hearing it gets better," Pacey says.

"Growing up," Dawson says. "I know you're right. I know I have no right to be mad at Joey for her actions, I have no right to expect her to act like some imagining I have of her. It's the worst, it's the shittiest growing up and realizing people exist outside what you think they are."

"Fuck, I know," Pacey says. "Like, realizing your parents aren't just people that are there for you, they're their own people and they make mistakes. And sometimes they're just bad parents."

"Your dad isn't so bad," Dawson says.

Pacey picks at his nails.

Dawson says, "Remember when we weren't like this and we did whatever we wanted because we didn't care about other people? Those were good times."

"Now it's just relentless, having to deal with consequences," Pacey says. "I'd like to pee wherever I want. I miss that."

"Please don't start that up again, at least until you leave this room," Dawson says. "You could piss out the window. I did that once."

"You want me to piss on the sacred ladder?"

"I want you to have better aim and not hit it," Dawson says, laughing. "Come on, Pacey, do it."

Pacey stands there with his fly open and his dick in hand and he prays Grams doesn't look over. He just manages to miss the ladder.

Principal Green and his daughter leave. Pacey rents Joey a wall so she can do another mural. She starts painting that night. He bikes by at 3 am because he has a nightmare and she's still there. "Hey, Potter," he says. "Go home."

She turns, laughing. "I know, I know. Why are you out so late?" She puts her paints away and grabs her own bike. "Oh my god, Pacey, it's so late."

"Like a person not possessed by the spirit of Picasso -"

"Cassatt! O'Keefe! Kahlo! There are women painters, you sexist," Joey says, almost high.

"I went to bed. I had a nightmare. The earth swallowed you and spit you out. So I got up and biked over to make sure you weren't in a mire or something," Pacey says.

"I'm good," Joey says. She gets off her bike and kisses his cheek. "Go home, go to sleep. Learn more female painters."

He didn't have a chance before she left for another weekend with AJ. She calls him at 3 am. He grabs the phone just in case it's for him, he doesn't want to get yelled at again. "Pacey," she says, she's crying.

"I'll come pick you up," he says.

"I'm about to get on the train, you can pick me up there."

He never realized there was a 3 am train, but he guesses people always need to run away from Boston at all times of day. She's wearing a pretty dress and her hair is up and fancy. As she gets in the truck, she takes out pins and fingers out all the twists and tangles from the hairspray. She says, "Thanks."

"You're welcome," he says.

She says, "We broke up. Duh. There was this girl who loved him and under everything he loved her, it was just, I felt like I was you or something."

"You were taller and had a penis?"

"They were me and Dawson and I was you," Joey says. She's mean when she's hurt.

"If they were you and Dawson, then they were meant to be friends, that seems to be the conclusion the two of you have come to," Pacey says.

"What me and Dawson were supposed to be, before it all got screwed up," Joey says.

"Maybe nothing got screwed up," Pacey says.

"Everything got screwed up," Joey says, sniffling.

"You're really a joy to talk to you at this time of night," Pacey says. "You made a choice, it sounds like. You think you you made the right choice but also your heart is kind of broken so you're taking it out on me as the nearest available target which, sure, but you know I'm not just the outlier trying to break up your forever perfect love, which I'm not, I'm the guy driving you home."

"I could walk," she says. Then she says, "Sorry."

"Please don't think just because I have this absurd adoration for your bitter bitter self that you can just treat me like shit," Pacey says.

"How is that even supposed to work? You love me, I don't love you, we keep hanging out," Joey says.

"Well, I can't make you love me, there's a whole song about that. I figured we'd just keep being friends until I got over you, which I don't see happening soon, or we keep being friends and you do what works for you and I try to make you happy," Pacey says. "I don't know. I don't want you to be uncomfortable. If it freaks you out, we can stop hanging out."

"I don't want that," Joey says, a tear in her voice. She leans over like she wants to kiss him.

"No, no, no," Pacey says. "Get some sleep and then act. 3 am decisions after you've broken up with the guy you lost your virginity to for stupidly noble reasons, those are always ones you'll regret."

"You're so sure," Joey says.

"It's happened to me dozens of time," Pacey says.

"Losing your virginity," Joey says.

"Sort of. I feel like you're a virgin with each new person you have sex with, it's all new. Not the mechanics, maybe, and you sort of know what to expect, but the next guy you have sex with, it won't be like AJ," he says.

"That's almost nice to think about," Joey says. They've reached her house and he watches her walk inside.

He doesn't see her for a week. He lets her set the tone on this stuff, on them, because he declared himself which also means he can't be an asshole and be all up in her face. He misses her, of course, and if he were Jen, he would listen to sad girl music. Jen tries to play some for him as he lays on her bed, vaguely studying. "It's not working, Jen, please, some actual rock and roll."

"No, you need this, Pacey," Jen says. She sits down next to him and smiles at him. "I'd offer to sleep with you, but honestly, I'm a little over casual sex."

"Even though we were fantastic together," Pacey says.

"Joey's been absurdly nice to me the last week, by the way," Jen says. "Do you think she read some Gloria Steinem?"

"Maybe she realized it was absurd to not like you," Pacey says.

Ten days and then Joey just sits down next to him at lunch. "Exactly how many of your classes are you failing, Witter?"

"I think only 2," he says.

"Two too many," she says. "I need to pretend I have an after school activity for college applications so I'm going to write after school tutor and I'm choosing you to tutor."

"What if I don't want to be tutored?" He just feels happier when she's next to him, it's absolutely asinine.

"I'm going to inflict myself on you," she says.

She really means it. For a month she really does tutor him. All his grades go up. "You're a lousy tutor, by the way," he says.

"Your grades are going up, you're not failing any class," she says.

"Because you make me sit down and study, you don't really actually help," he says. "You put the book in front of me, you ask me some questions, you study yourself and then you ask more questions if you even remember the book. The entirety of what you're doing is making studying a thing in my schedule that includes time to listen to your lame version of banter."

She rolls her eyes. "Did you see my wall?"

"It looks amazing," Pacey says. "Like the kind of mural Frida Kahlo's husband would do. With more estrogen."

She leans in and he leans in and they are actually kissing. He says, "You feel like sufficient time has passed that this isn't a bad decision?"

"Pacey, it's you, of course it's a bad decision," she says. "I was thinking about what you said, you know."

"When?"

"I don't know," she says, laughing. "You talk a lot."

It's another month before they have sex. "Just because we've both had sex in previous relationships does not mean we rush into it in this one," Joey says. She's pushed up her skirt and her panties are on the floor somewhere. Pacey cleaned his room just for this occasion. No one will disturb them because no one gives a damn about Pacey in his house.

She's kind of on his lap, her naked thighs hot through his jeans. He only pulled them down so far. He has the condom on and then the two of them and their hands and they meet together. He looks down at his penis where he's moving inside her, where they meet. It's a stupid unforeseen miracle that he has this. He slowly rubs her clit.

She arches her back and throws her head back, it's a cliche but he can't help it, when she comes, he does because they did this together. "I love you," he says.

She kisses his neck and murmurs something ridiculous. Like she loves him back.


End file.
